In recent years, increasing numbers of credit products have become available and many can be acquired electronically over a network. Typically, banking customers must acquire and complete separate applications for different credit products. For example, if a customer wants both an auto loan and a home equity loan from the same financial institution, the customer will typically be required to complete two separate applications for these loans.
As banking has evolved and banking customers have become more reliant on mobile and real time computing technologies to shape their banking experiences, traditional models of obtaining credit have become antiquated. Customers over the years have filled out applications in person, over the phone, through the mail, or more recently online, for specific credit products. However, these credit applications often require the customer to provide information that the customer's bank may already have. Thus the consumer is duplicating the bank's efforts by completing the application.
A financial institution hosting an Internet banking site may wish to provide its customers with a full range of banking services, e.g., opening and maintaining a checking account, applying for a credit card or loan, paying bills, or accessing brokerage or financial planning services. Before a customer can utilize these services, the customer often must complete a separate application process for each product. Therefore, the customer may be required to complete several applications, often entering the same information, e.g., name, address, telephone and social security number, on multiple applications. This is a significant drawback to the customer. This is also a significant drawback to the Internet banking host because customer dissatisfaction may result in lost accounts. Furthermore, when a customer of a networked service provider completes a service application, application processing may require a significant amount of time. This delay in the application process is a significant drawback.
Additionally, the applications provided to the customers are typically completely blank. Thus, the customer is required to provide all required information on each application form. These steps are typically required even though the information is duplicative and even through the financial institution may already have much of the needed information in its possession. Thus, customers end up providing a financial institution with duplicative information that the financial institution already possesses, thus wasting customer time and effort.
Systems have evolved to eliminate the need for duplication if a customer is applying for multiple financial products simultaneously. For example, commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/599,602, filed on Jun. 23, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,831,508, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a consolidated application process which can assist a customer with dynamically completing an application for multiple financial products.
However, when completing such an application, the customer remains unaware of the terms available to the customer for each product and furthermore, whether the product is available to the customer at all. For example, the customer may complete an application for a home equity loan without knowing the interest rate or amount applicable to himself and may apply for a credit card without knowing the credit limit, interest rate, or other terms that he may be offered. Thus, the customer is forced to complete the application without any previewing of the terms and conditions that might be available to him.
Furthermore, throughout the course of customer's life, the customer is likely to acquire multiple credit products such as mortgages, home equity loans, lines of credit, credit cards, auto loans, commercial loans, or other types of credit. Each time the customer is interested in obtaining a credit product, the customer researches available products, analyzes the products, and upon making a decision on a particular product, completes an application to acquire the available product. Thus the customer performs the entire research, analysis, and decision making process without any information regarding the terms and conditions that might be offered to the customer with respect to these products.
Furthermore, each time a customer acquires a credit product, the balance sheet or comprehensive financial picture for that customer changes. Customers generally resort to outside resources to obtain a complete cash flow picture and comparative analysis, without the assistance of the financial institution offering the product. Given the amount of data and information collected by the financial institution about each customer, a solution is needed that will enable the financial institution to assist with providing this information to the customer.
Thus a solution is needed that will enable financial institution customers to complete a single lifetime application for all credit products and allow the application to be updated over time. Thus, the solution should, at all times during the customer relationship, be able to provide a suite of products available to each customer and allow the customer to simply select any product from the suite of available products, without filling out an additional application in order to acquire that product.